Boot Theory
by wikiaddicted723
Summary: They're always waiting for the other show to drop. [This is Fringe/American Gods/ Twin Peaks fusion fic].


**A/N:** So, yes, I am a bit unhinged. This story is more of a fusion. You will not see any of the characters from AG or Twin Peaks, and I'm sorry for that, but I can only juggle so many people in a story right now.

The title of this story is taken shamelessly from the poem by Richard Siken with the same name.

This would not have been possible without my beta, and the people still reading it who didn't know I was posting today (_I_ didn't know I was posting today) *cough'rithcough*

* * *

It's two in the morning when the phone rings.

Olivia rolls towards the sound out of habit, hand outstretched and looking for her nightstand, still half-asleep. Instead, she finds empty space. Her eyes snap open.

Right. Not her place.

Silently, she pushes herself up, swings her legs over the side of the mattress, guarding against the creak of the springs underneath. Olivia hates this bed, the old mattress and unsteady frame, but the only alternative is hers. It will have to do. She brings the thin sheets with her, guarding against the chill of the air as it freezes the night's sweat.

Streetlight filters through the half-closed blinds, recreating the shapes of the apartment around her from scratch. It's quiet outside, not a wailing siren, not a car. The phone was left forgotten with her pants, beside the beer bottles and the woolen scarves. It's easy to find. "Dunham."

There's a familiar snicker on the other end of the line. "And good morning to you, too, Deputy."

The man in the bed grumbles at her absence , chest bare without the sheets and shivering, missing the heat of her against his back. He looks younger with his eyes closed, his brow relaxed, the lines around his eyes turned suggestions of laughter in the dark. "This better be good, Charlie."

"For a certain definition of good. Patrol found another body by the shore a couple hours ago, same as the others."

Olivia sighs. "I'll be there in twenty."

"See you then." Charlie hangs up. He's always been efficient and to the point, both on the phone and off. She slides a hand through her hair, lets herself sit in the silence for a while.

The pale gold on her finger glints in what little light the blinds let in. Its lost its meaning. Now, it's a reminder of suspicions and outright lies, broken promises from both sides. Still, she wears it everywhere. Peter doesn't seem to mind.

She's sliding into her underwear when he wakes up behind her, and it's a good thing—she hates having to wake him up. A warm hand lands softly on her back, solid, and she turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Hey."

"Hi," he says, voice thick with sleep. "Work?" His hand slides up, then down, over her arm. She doesn't bother suppressing the shiver. It's not like he doesn't already know exactly what his touch does.

"Yeah, body. By the lake. Get dressed." She moves away before the twenty minute promise flies out the window with the next slide of his hand.

Her smart phone screen announces the time and date when she turns it on. Two twenty six a.m. October twelfth.

Happy Fucking Birthday.

* * *

Tonight the shore is illuminated. There's a police car blocking the bridge with its headlights on, a few spot lights set up for officers to comb through the scene for anything the first patrol might have missed. There's only five people here, not counting the dead man, but it seems a crowd for this small town.

Olivia crouches, Sheriff Francis standing beside her and the bloated corpse that drove her here cold on the ground. She turns it face-up with gloved hands, tries not to grimace. Opens its mouth and looks inside with her pen light. _Bingo._ "What's this? The third? Fourth body?"

"Third," Charlie says, hands on his belt, warm breath turned to fog in the night air.

"In five months."

"Yeah."

Olivia stands up slowly, dusts her jeans, feeling the strain on her knees from holding the crouch for a while. "So, what are you thinking? Serial killer?" She makes sure her voice carries over to the others. It would not do to have them question the oddities of the case just yet, if ever.

"I'm thinking you're too clearheaded to be awake this early. How much coffee did you chug in that ten minute drive?" He yawns.

"You're just getting old, Charlie." She pats his back.

Charlie huffs, rolls his eyes. He motions with his head towards the yellow tape of the police line. "How's King coming along?"

Olivia turns to look at the subject in question, pacing the cold away by the car while he waits for her. Astrid has joined him, oversized camera still in her hands as they chat. "He's alright. Learns fast. Doesn't give a shit about protocol as far as I can tell, but I can work with that."

"Of course you can." Charlie says, an amused glint in his eyes. She doesn't give a shit about protocol either, never has.

"How's Sonia doing?"

The rare dumb grin on his face can only get wider. They've been trying for children for some time now. "She's great. Little one's kicking already."

Olivia returns his smile and hopes he doesn't notice the wistful twist of her mouth. She's been there, done that. Evidently, it didn't pan out. There are things in life that some people are not meant for, regardless of desire. "You know the sex yet?"

"No, Sonia said she'd rather be surprised."

Olivia raises both her eyebrows. "And you're okay with that?"

Charlie shrugs. "Can't argue with a pregnant woman, Liv."

"Ah. Smart man."

"Right, well," he sighs, turning to survey the crime scene one more time. "This smart man is going to leave the rotting corpse in your more than capable hands and go keep his pregnant wife warm. Bag it, tag it, get it to Stanton as soon as you can."

"I know how to do my job, Francis," she says to his retreating back.

"Yeah, yeah."

* * *

The breakfast crowd at Mabel's must be a mathematical constant of some kind, like gravity, or the speed of light.

Rachel had decided against changing anything about the diner when she bought it a few winters back, after Mabel died, and if business prosperity is any indicator the choice was wise. They've been open for forty minutes and the trickle of patrons sleepily wading in has yet to stop.

Outside the diner, the sun shines with the dull October glow of an energy efficient light bulb behind frosted glass. The even coat of rainfall over the town square reflects the light with the lazy quality of mornings best spent on pillows and under quilts, while storefronts slowly come to life.

Peter drops his jacket and scarf across from her on the worn booth, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. "I'm gonna go check on Walter."

"Sure," Olivia says. As an afterthought: "you want me to order for you?"

"Um, yeah. Eggs and bacon?" He turns back after a couple of steps in the kitchen's direction. "And toast, if they still have some of that blackberry jam. And coffee—a lot of coffee."

"Of course." Olivia watches him retreat towards the kitchen, back straight and tense, like he's ready to walk into a fight. That particular assessment is probably not very far off mark.

The Kings make an odd pair: mercurial, incredibly smart and forever at odds with one another. From what Peter's let slip through his carefully crafted exterior, going crazy actually made Walter a better man than he was. There's an old anger between them, a deep seated resentment owing to more than a parent's absence, and Olivia wonders if the old Walter was familiar with the concept of abuse.

With gritted teeth, she thinks he wouldn't be the first parent in the world to take it out on his kid. He'll certainly not be the last.

The waitress comes over with the food and the coffee before Peter makes it back, and when he does, he slides into the booth with a weary sigh and a frown. It doesn't look like he'll speak, or move, or do anything other than sit moodily in place like a despondent schoolboy, and Olivia was having a bad day before the sun was even up. She sets her coffee cup down and leans back.

She's about to stand and survey the damage with her own eyes when he finally speaks. "I wouldn't go in the kitchen if I were you."

"What did Walter do now?"

King and Son have only been in town for a little over the half-year mark, but most of the diner's patrons are already familiar with the older man's particular flair of eccentricity (madness). According to Rachel, the only reason he's managed to keep the job through it all is that his cooking just keeps getting better.

That, and Friday Night's Mystery Pie, served free of charge to people too wasted to actually taste it, or some brave soul looking for a free breakfast in exchange for eating a whole slice. Someone, maybe Frank, had come up with that to get rid of the pies piling up over the counter. Rumor has it they're either bliss or a catastrophe. Either way, it's been a hit.

Peter grabs the coffee pot, pours himself a second cup and adds some milk. He stirs. "Walter is, and I quote, "trying to recreate the perfect strawberry milkshake" in between food orders, which he apparently invented sometime around '72. He has also significantly depleted the dairy in the diner's fridge in the interest of the project, and did I mention he's high?"

"He's _what?"_

He takes a sip. "High as a fucking kite. Apparently he needs to mimic the conditions he was in when he put together the recipe the first time, in order to stimulate his brain into actually remembering, and, of course, those conditions include copious amounts of homegrown marijuana—for which he assured me he has a prescription, by the way—and the breeze. That's the short version, would you like to hear more?"

"Uh, no, thanks, I think I've heard enough. Does this happen often?"

"You have no idea."

Conversation becomes intermittent, turned to matters they're both comfortable discussing and Olivia alternates between listening, watching him eat, and looking without seeing at the people walking outside the stenciled window.

The cheque comes when he's done, and with it her sister and niece, who holds a frosted cupcake complete with burning candle in front of her, with a sweet dimpled grin. "Happy Birthday, Aunt Liv!"

Olivia smiles and takes the cupcake reverently with one hand, reaches for her niece with the other, hugging the girl to her firmly and pressing a kiss to her cheek. "Thank you, baby girl, I really wanted one of these."

"Blow the candle, Aunt Liv! You have to blow it or you can't make a wish."

She chuckles. "Is that how it works now?"

Ella nods vigorously, and Olivia raises her eyes to her sister's. Rachel's got that patient mother look pasted on but it doesn't fool the older sister for a minute. This ambush was a two person scheme, she'd bet her badge on it. "Well then, how about we blow it together? That way each of us gets a wish. What do you think?"

"Really?" Ella says with an earnest face.

"Really."

They blow the candle on three, together, and Olivia almost forgets why she hates today.

Rachel places a hand on her daughter's back. "Okay, El, she got your present, now say goodbye to Aunt Liv so she can go back to work. I'll see you soon, Liv."

Olivia nods and smiles. The little girl does as she's told, waving goodbye and grinning still. "Bye, Aunt Liv, bye Peter."

Peter. She'd forgotten about him, here, witnessing all this. He's right there, staring at her over the rim of his coffee cup, pensive. "What?" she asks.

He gives her a smile she's never seen: fleeting, sincere. "I didn't know it was your birthday today."

Olivia looks away, dreading the rest of the day again. "You do now."

* * *

It's often during patrol that Olivia remembers Lakeside used to be a beautiful town.

Driving around the same places day in and day out makes the focus of vision shift, expand to take in everything at once as it passes by, like the broad strokes of a painting as seen from afar. Without the details, the litter, the darkened, unkempt alleys and the broken people in them bathing in the neon lights of the all-american twenty-four-hour obsession, she can see what people saw ten years back: a haven, a little pocket of quiet and calm.

The concept seems idyllic if she refuses to also see the shadows that lurked all about, wearing the faces of children someone loved and lost, once. Those shadows are the only thing that haven't deserted, left for better places, but they're obvious now, no need to hide in plain sight when the secret's out.

Now, Lakeside is little more than a resting place for strays, and broken people, and the old. It's the end of the line, nowhere to turn except back.

"So what does Deputy Dunham usually do for her birthday?" Peter fiddles with the radio, doesn't look at her as he asks the question, but Olivia feels the weight of his full attention nonetheless.

"I don't really celebrate," Olivia says. "It's just a day, like any other before it."

"That's cheerful."

Her eyes flick over to him, then away when they meet his. Her hands are tight on the wheel. "Birthdays remind me of…things…that I'd rather forget."

Peter slides down in his seat, says simply, "Okay." And it's not lack of interest in any way, it's respect. He doesn't stop looking at her, but he also doesn't ask anything else, doesn't push her.

She would thank him, but the words are stuck in the back of her throat, and she's pretty sure if she opens her mouth she'll choke.

* * *

A young woman stops them by the seven-eleven on Main Street, and an old man by the bridge; both ask them if it's true that the lake spat out another body this week. Olivia says that there's an investigation ongoing so there's not much she can say, but yes, Dinah, a police car found the body earlier that morning on the west shore, and no, Ernie, those are just superstitions, there's nothing supernatural about corpses rotting in large bodies of water. Happens all the time in places larger than this.

"What's the deal with the lake, anyway?" Peter fiddles with the radio yet again, looking for something other than traffic patterns or the news. "Everyone gets this look when they ask, like they just saw a ghost or something."

Olivia rolls the window back up, looks at him. "You mean you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Huh. Okay." Olivia puts the car back in drive and moves off. "There was a murder, about ten, eleven years back, a teenage girl, local girl—people from other places didn't really end up in Lakeside all that often back then—they thought she was just missing, at first. Disappearances used to be a yearly thing during the winter; I guess people thought, hey, children go walking in the forest unsupervised, or hitchhike out of town, get lost before they can make it back. The kind of thing you tell yourself to sleep easier at night. So, it's the last month of spring, and the ice over the lake is melting. A hunting party makes a stop by the north of the lake, and one of the men thinks he sees something close to shore, so a few of them go and investigate."

"Let me guess," Peter says. "It was the missing kid."

"Yeah. The ice had preserved the body pretty well, she was only starting to rot. So they call the cops, and the cops figure she went down with that year's klunker—they used to get one decrepit old car to put out on the lake every winter, bet on the day the ice would break underneath it. They sent most of the money to charity. Anyway, the cops pull the car from the bottom of the lake, find very little other than the fact that the car went down with the trunk open, figure she'd been killed and dumped there, hidden under everyone's nose. And someone, somewhere makes the connection: there'd been a disappearance every year, and every year a car went down and the children stayed missing. Military divers got involved by that point; they pulled all the cars that weren't rusted to bits from the lake, some of them from as far back as the fifties. There was a missing child in every one of them."

Peter takes a minute to answer. "Well, I'm gonna sleep like a baby tonight, knowing that I can see the local mass grave out the window. They ever find the killer?"

It's probably sick that she finds amusement in the plain discomfort of his tone, his posture, but today of all days it makes her smile. "No. The first few months they thought it was a cult of some kind, because of the frequency and method of the killings—the fact that they'd gone on for so long. That and the ice burial. It all screams ritualistic, but they couldn't find anything to prove it, so, after a couple of years with no leads they just let it go."

"Must've been fun, growing up north of nowhere with murder all around."

"I wouldn't know." Olivia shrugs. "I'm from Jacksonville, not Lakeside."

"Jacksonville, Florida?"

"Yeah. My grandfather was from here though. My father's father. Rachel's apartment used to be his."

"How'd you get all the way up here from _Jacksonville?_"

"It's a long story."

Not necessarily a happy one.

* * *

By midday they stop for gas at the Exxon on the southernmost tip of the town, and the rumors of the body they found chase them like a pack of wolves after prey. Word of mouth travels fast in a region where gossip is the meat and mead of everyday life, and nothing makes for better gossip than murder.

Peter steps out of the car, stretches his legs. "I'm gonna use the restroom, you want anything?"

Olivia shakes her head no, thanks, and watches him go up the stairs and into the store. She starts the pump. Inside the car, on the console, her phone beeps. She reaches through the open window, retrieves the phone just as the noise stops. The text reads:

LIV,

TESTS ARE DONE. WAITING ON RESULTS. MEET ME WHEN YOU GET BACK—FRANK.

She nods to herself, replies to let the coroner know she got the message, and returns the phone to her pocket. Eventually, the pump comes to a stop with a mechanical groan, and the numbers on the screen stop with it. Olivia removes the nozzle and pushes the fuel cap closed.

When she turns back to get the store in her line of sight, Peter's crouching by a slip of a girl, talking to her. She can't be more than eighteen, and she's tense, extremely thin. Whatever he's saying, she looks put off by it, shaking her head and curling away from him. Frowning, Olivia walks towards them.

Peter sees her, meets her eyes, and there's a warning in his furrowed brow that makes her pause, approach slowly until she's just within hearing range of their conversation. He's saying "…I promise. I'm not gonna rat you out and I'm not gonna take away whatever you got from the store, okay? I just want you to show me your hands."

The girl is hugging herself, and Olivia can see her confusion, but the calm in his tone must have worked because she reaches out and puts her hand in his. The shaking is only perceptible because Olivia's looking closely, and it's not from the cold. Her fingernails are bloody, bitten to the quick.

Peter keeps one of his hands holding hers, and the other grabs the sleeve of her sweater. "I'm gonna push this up. Is that okay?"

The girl nods, a glassy expression on her face, and he pushes the fabric up gently, inch by inch. Under the sweater, a familiar pattern of bruises mottles her skin. For a moment, Olivia sees a different girl standing there. Smaller, younger, lighter hair. It's gone when she blinks next, but the pain of the bruises remains. And the anger, always the anger. Only then does she realize she's been holding her breath—the pressure in her chest releases with her next exhale.

Peter keeps his hands on the sleeve of the sweater, doesn't dare touch her anywhere else, and he's still staring, like a curator looking at a monument that's been defaced, committing the damage to memory. His tone is dead when he speaks. "You know the person who did this to you?"

The girl shakes her head no. "I can't remember." Her words are short of a sob, little more than a whisper— she lies. Maybe she has to.

"That's alright." Peter rolls the sweater back down her arm and stands up. She takes her hand away and he doesn't stop her. "Have you eaten anything?"

Another wordless 'no.'

Peter opens the door to the store, gestures towards it. "C'mon then, let's get you some food."

They come out minutes later with a burger and two orders of fries and he's saying something about sweet pickles and hot sauce, and the girl's making a face, but the pull of her muscles is not anxious, not afraid; the knot in Olivia's gut loosens a fraction. Peter glances at her, face shuttered, and nods an "okay."

She approaches them as they sit on the steps, and the girl tenses but Olivia sits anyway, putting Peter between them for her sake, even if it chafes.

"Julie, this is my friend, Olivia. Olivia, this is Julie." Peter gestures between them. "Fries, anyone?"

* * *

They drive Julie home and home is a small house nearby that's falling apart, an older man smoking in his robe and knee-length woolen socks, seemingly immune to the cold. He sits on a rocking chair on the thin, dirty stripe of the front porch, and doesn't seem to notice the police car by the door. The scrapes on his knuckles speak for themselves. A black-and-orange cat lies, licking its paws, on the window sill.

_A cliché,_ Olivia thinks, but the thought is devoid of amusement. Her gun burns on her hip, all the way through cloth and skin and the bone underneath.

They leave her with Olivia's card and Peter's number, and a smile that is barely there. Olivia knows it's better than nothing.

The rage she felt is just a numbness now, another desensitized patch on the inside of her ribcage for her heart to beat against. This kind of anger doesn't leave; it resurfaces sometimes, keeps her from sleep until she's unable to dream a dream that is not a nightmare, or forget she dreamt at all after she's woken up.

It's frustration, the knowledge of failure (that she can do nothing without the victim's testimony). By now, she has gotten used to the companionship.

They are driving somewhere around the western bounds of the town when Peter finally speaks. "Stop the car," he says, his voice like gravel.

He's been so quiet, so still, that Olivia's almost surprised at the sound, but he's looking out the window, face blank and body tense and so entirely off that she doesn't question him. She pulls over by the side of the road, and she waits.

Calmly, deliberately, he unfastens his seatbelt, opens his door and steps out of the car. He starts walking. He doesn't stop.

Olivia turns the engine off when he turns right and follows a path veering off the side of the road, cutting through farmland. She calls after him but he doesn't seem to hear her, just keeps walking on until he hits a bend in the road and disappears. She follows.

The path is rocks and packed earth turned to mud in the seasonal rain, old and well-traveled and yet uneven, and she has to watch her step in the dimming light of late afternoon. It takes her through pastures reeking of cow, past the edges of the first farm and into the next. She doesn't run, but her pace is brisk. The smell of autumn leaves burning permeates the air.

She finds him behind the barn on the second farm, about twenty minutes in from where she left the car and the street, leaning on his elbows against the rotting wood of the fence, his head down. "Peter," she says, and she could've whispered it but in this eerie, middle-of-nowhere silence it would still be too loud.

Instantly, he turns to her. His eyes scan her face until they settle on hers. "Hey."

"What the hell was that?"

Peter blinks, like the thought of her asking is the strangest thing, and he shrugs. "Felt like walking."

Olivia purses her lips and approaches. She's fooling herself. She knows what this is: anger, impotence, the same things she was too busy raging against to realize he was feeling as well. He looks away, stares at the flat land beyond the fence.

"How did you know, about the girl?" she asks him.

Peter swallows, and she follows the shape of his adam's apple outlined in the golden light of the barn lamp in the background. "She was stealing, at the store. She was good, too, quick hands, good wardrobe. I caught a glimpse of her arm when she was sneaking a Mars bar up her sleeve, and…you know the rest." Then, after a beat, "You thought I was scaring her." The words are soft, but it's a certainty, not a question.

"You were, at first."

Peter frowns. Considers it. "Maybe, but that's not what I meant. You thought I was doing something I wasn't. What was it? Did you think I was hitting on her?"

"No." Olivia takes a breath. "I don't know what I thought. I just—I knew her fear. I felt it." _Felt it like it was mine, and you were that fear._

"And you thought you'd blame me, since there was no one else."

"Yes." She says it harsher than she means to, because he doesn't understand. He can't understand.

Peter only nods. "Why wouldn't she speak? I mean, you saw the bruises. We were right there, if she'd said the word we could've just charged him with assault and she'd be rid of him. Why would someone protect a monster like that?"

Red polka dots. White linen. Blood. These are the images his words bring forth, but they're not a shock. Olivia has been seeing them for too long, when her eyes close.

"Maybe she can't," she says. "Maybe he's all she has. There could be a hundred reasons, and they would all be valid. Sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do." She folds her hand into his slowly, the touch awkward because Olivia has never been good at this, at giving comfort or asking for it. She tries all the same. "What you did for her, though, that was good."

"I didn't do anything. I just bought her lunch."

Olivia shakes her head, smiles a little. "You were kind, and you didn't pity her. It's not going to fix her, but it's a start."

There's something raw about him, a nakedness Olivia can't place. He gets like this when it's quiet, when it's just him and her: a little more hopeful, a lot less confident. And it clicks, then. Maybe, Olivia thinks, maybe, underneath all the smoke and all the mirrors, this is him.

Peter squeezes back.

* * *

"Dunham! I was starting to think you weren't coming by." Frank Stanton grabs a paper towel from the roll he keeps by the sink, dries his hands and moves to greet her, a half-eaten plate of fruit salad on the empty gurney beside him.

"Sorry, Frank, got delayed on the way," she says, coat and scarf slung over her arm. Even if it's always cold down at the morgue, it is never colder than the prequel to a Lakeside Winter, and Olivia has been out in it for so long today that just walking through a wing of the hospital to get here has her sweating under her clothes.

"It's fine, at least you got here after the test results. That's always good."

"So what've we got?"

"Well," Frank says, waving her closer, "I'm afraid it's not much. I did get an I.D. but other than that the blood tests came back clean, so there's not a lot I can tell you on that front. The autopsy didn't go much better, but I found a few things I thought you might be interested in."

"What things?" Olivia moves towards the second gurney, where their corpse has already been autopsied and put back together, a blue-stitched Y cutting from shoulders to navel. The stitches are small, neat, the cuts steady. It's a beautiful job, more fit for an operating table than the morgue.

"I'm assuming you saw the palate indentations already?"

"Yes, I did. Three nail markings, just like on the other two bodies, same place, same configuration. "

"Ok, good. So, as before, the indentations were done post-mortem, though the reason for them still eludes me, to be honest. This one didn't drown either, cause of death was blunt force trauma—someone hit him really hard in the back of the head, cracked his skull open like a piñata. You have to allow for some wiggle room when dealing with this level of decomposition, of course, but from the wound pattern it looks like the weapon could've been a tire iron, maybe a crow bar. Now, that's all pretty standard, but—and here's where it gets interesting—I found something else."

Frank moves to the side, retrieves a file that he places in front of her. It's filled with pictures of the other victims, all taken here, in this room. Close-ups of their mouths, open and closed, of their nostrils and their eyes. "I didn't really think anything of it in the other two bodies," Frank says, "because it's not something that's necessarily related to the way they died, but, here, you see how his gums are swollen?" He waits for her to nod before he moves on. "Now check his eyes and his nose."

"They're also swollen."

"Exactly. And look at the pictures. It's the same in all three of them, most probably also post-mortem."

Olivia frowns, chewing on her upper lip. "Why would that happen?"

"As far as I can tell, it's a symptom of rapid dehydration. If they'd been alive when it happened, I'd lean towards some sort of virus. Hypovolemic shock maybe, considering the temperatures in the lake."

"How rapid are we talking about?"

"For this much swelling? Minutes, maybe an hour."

"Minutes?" Olivia closes the file, hands on her hips. "What does that?"

Frank shrugs. "No idea. A volcano?"

* * *

"It's happening sooner than we expected."

"Of course it is. We always knew our predictions would have a margin of error. The question is, why?"

"We don't know, but the doors are getting wider. Unstable. The bosses are worried—more and more people are flocking to Jones."

"More people you're going to have to kill, you mean."

"Yes, it's gotten messier. The balance is precarious enough as it is, and the frequency of events is getting higher. He's getting confident."

"And the organization keeps getting smaller because of it, when we should be expanding. I can see how that would be troublesome. Have you found the rest of the subjects?"

"Some of them, not all. Jones got to a couple before we could extract them; his methods are…rough. My unit scraped floors for a while. Thirteen and Two?"

"Still where you left them. Perfectly healthy, still somewhat sane. You might want to check up on them soon though."

"Trouble?"

"That depends on your outlook. We could just be very lucky."

"I don't like riddles, Sam."

"You people, it's like they get in your head and remove the joy of intrigue with a scalpel when they draw you in. Bishop is here. Both of them."

* * *

Charlie's waiting for her when she makes it back to the Department.

"Astrid said you wanted to see me," Olivia says. She makes sure the door is closed and takes the seat being offered to her, across from his on the desk.

She has always liked this office. There is a sense of security that carries over from the clean spaces of the room, the roughness of the brick behind the sheriff and his desk, and the whitewashed walls to her left and back; the window to her right, always open an inch no matter the season, the blinds halfway up, and the couch underneath it.

"I did," Charlie says, closing the file on his desk and setting it aside. "What did the doctor find?"

"Not a lot. The victim is army: Major Paul Norton, on leave visiting relatives in Madison according to records. What he was doing in Lakeside is unknown at the moment. Frank also concluded that the bodies of all three victims show signs of accelerated dehydration, but he couldn't tell me what caused it."

"We already knew he wouldn't. Any match on the cause of death?"

Olivia shakes her head. "No, this time the killer broke his skull; the first victim was stabbed and the second drowned. To tell you the truth if it weren't for the punctured palates and the dehydration I'd say these murders were entirely unrelated."

"So it's exactly as the files said."

Olivia grimaces, but nods. "To the letter, as far as I can tell."

"You're still thinking this is military?"

"I really don't see a better explanation, considering the source. Do you?"

"No, no I don't, but that still doesn't explain how you come into this."

"Yeah…" Her smile is wry. She doesn't need the reminder; it's not like she's been able to think of anything else. "I just wish I knew where the lies end."

"Look, Liv, I know this is hard on you. I can't even imagine what it must feel like to…" he trails off, uncomfortable. Feelings are not something they routinely discuss. It's not part of the job. "Anyway, if you need something, if you wanna take a couple days off…"

"No, It's okay. I'm okay, Charlie." She knows he sees the lie. Despite the menacing frown, she also knows he won't call her on it. It's not his style.

"Alright." Charlie sighs, and she's already standing, moving to the door. "Keep looking at those missing persons reports. Maybe these things will go back to the victims' families, pretend everything's normal. We'd get some answers then."

"Will do."

At the moment, Olivia can only see questions.

* * *

"Eight Ball Pub and Bowling, Nick speaking."

Olivia seats on the wooden bench outside the Sheriff's office, shuffling through the stack of daily mail. Finding nothing with her name on it, she smiles into the phone. "Aw, listen to you go, you actually do a good impression of a grown up."

"Deputy, you offend me," Nick says, overdramatic as he's always been. "I assure you, any resemblance is purely coincidental."

"Hey, Nicky."

"Good to hear your voice, Olive. This a social call or should I put Sam on the phone?"

Olivia chuckles. "You know me too well."

"Sam, then. Gimme a second, I think he's in the back."

"I can give you two, if you want."

"Sassy." If eye-rolling had a sound attached she'd be listening for it right about now. Instead she hears him set the phone down on the bar with a thump. If she pays attention, she can make out the soft sounds of Phil Collins' greatest hits playing in the background, meaning the place is empty and Sam's already had his share of beer.

Soon enough the man she's looking for is on the phone. "I swear I wasn't speeding, deputy!"

"Hello, Sam."

"Ah, Buttercup, I have missed your dulcet tones. My bartender didn't specify when he said the call was from the Sheriff's Department. What can I do for you?"

"I need a favor."

"Of course you do," he says, in that way of his that lets her know he's considering whether she's hit her head or is just dumb. "I just asked what it was, didn't I?"

Olivia rubs her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I just remembered why I don't like you."

"Oh, I'm great for memory like that." The sound of clinking glass and Nick humming along to_ You Can't Hurry Love_ echoes in the background. Olivia chooses to focus on that.

Any conversation with Sam not about bowling or beer has the potential to turn into a nightmare, given enough time. He loves to tease. Aware of this, she ignores the taunt. "You need to get a waitress."

"A waitress? You out of a job, deputy?"

"It's not for me. Her name's Julia Benson, she's sixteen. She's going to be calling for the job in a few days, and I need you to let her have it."

He considers it for a moment before replying. "What do I get in return?"

"How about I forget that speeding ticket you mentioned?"

"And the two before it," Sam bargains. It's what Sam does. He's incredibly good at it, persuasive in a way that is irritating because it has more to do with blackmail than a skill with words. She's fond of him and he knows it, but she doesn't trust him. He knows that, too.

"Done."

"You got yourself a deal, Dunham." He sounds incredibly pleased.

"Good. Put Nick back on the phone, will you?"

Sam snickers. "Y'know, you should brush up on you social skills. That's just rude."

"If you pissed me off a little less, maybe I'd treat you accordingly."

"Whatever. Here he is, talk his ears off, smile a little, joke. Maybe look human for appearances' sake."

"Very funny."

It's Nick who answers back. "What's funny?"

"Nothing, Sam's being Sam."

"Ah. You do know he only does it because it bothers you, right?"

"Oh, I know." She does, really. The knowledge hasn't made him any less irritating so far.

"And you play along because?"

"I figure it does him good to feel important every so often."

Nick laughs. "I am so glad to be your friend, I mean, you actually like me. How many people can say that?"

"Don't get cocky, bartender." She's known Nick Lane since she was three years old. He's the only part of her life aside from Rachel that's more or less intact, barring some tears, some scars. She turns serious. "Listen, there's a girl who's gonna be taking a job there in a few days, her name's Julie. She's had a rough time and I, uh, I'd appreciate it if you made sure Sam's careful with her."

As always, he seems to sense the severity of the situation by the turn of her mood. "Of course. Any particulars I need to know?"

"Not really. You'll know as much as I do when you see her. Just don't stare at the bruises too much."

* * *

Peter can't bring himself to get out of the car, and he's running out of excuses. Outside, the sky is already dark enough for the stars, and the air is still clean enough, up here, that he can see them sprawl. "You wanna come up? Maybe get a drink or three?"

Beside him, Olivia shifts in her seat, turns towards him. She looks dangerous in the lack of light, with shadows around her eyes and her pupils dilated inside the evergreen rings around their edges, speckled with gold; her pale hair, unbound, haloes the shape of her face. There's a flash in his mind, a single frame disconnected from sequence, layered subliminally over the stream of images in the theatre to make the audience react in the fashion desired, of her legs wrapped around him as he slides inside her, her breath hot against his cheek. He blinks it away, but she smiles a little anyway, like she knows.

"I'd love to," she says. "But Rachel is going to kill me if I don't show up tonight."

"I thought you didn't have any plans." Peter raises his eyebrow.

Olivia chuckles, but it's a tired sound. "Try telling that to my sister."

There's a weariness to her today, as if the day itself weighs on her, clouds her vision. It's like she's walking on eggshells, fearing the movement of the world around her at the edge of her vision, measuring her breathing so it makes no sound.

"Olivia, are you alright?" The question is inaccurate, its formulation too general for the response he wants, but he doesn't know how to ask the thousand questions he needs her to answer. Not without her seeing exactly how bad he wants to pick her apart, learn her whys and hows inside and out. Everything she does and says is one more thing he doesn't expect and he's on his toes all the fucking time when she's around. Reading people is what he's supposed to excel at, but she's long since made a wreck of his pride. He'd really like it back.

"I'm fine," is all she says, and ok, yeah, that he expected (he's learning). She looks away and it's clear to them both that she's anything but.

"Sure you are," Peter says under his breath, and he shouldn't have. It doesn't come out right. He doesn't know how to tell her that he's pretty sure he'd understand if only she let him, and it's infuriating, feeling like this. Caring. He tries to avoid it, if possible.

It must hurt, he thinks, to care for everyone all the time, the way she does. And it makes him ache, that she gives so much of herself when no one seems to care for her.

Peter shakes his head, grabs the door handle and pulls. The door clicks open, but she stops him before he can step out. She puts her hand on his arm, just a brush of her fingers over the fabric of his jacket, but it's the second time she has willingly touched him today. Generally, and barring all events happening within the confines of his bed, Olivia keeps to herself, hands always in her jacket pockets or at her sides, making a smaller target of herself, drawing attention away, like she's permanently trying not to disturb the air. Coming from her, the touch is as effective as a plea not to leave just yet.

It takes her a moment, but when she speaks it comes out in a rush. "I had a stepfather, and when he drank he'd accuse my mom of seeing other men, and then he'd hit her." Olivia pauses, looks away, and Peter's stomach drops. After a small second she goes on. "She never called the police, never defended herself. Sometimes, when she wasn't home he'd go for me, and when she came back she'd see the bruises but she never defended me either. Then, one day, he beat her really bad, broke her nose. I was nine. He stormed out of the house, drove off, and my mom's crying and there's blood running down her face and into her clothes. I remember it was her favorite dress, red polka dots on white linen. Rachel's in our room, and the room's on the second floor but I can hear her bawling. She's hysterical, little fists banging against the door I locked before I went down the stairs, and my mother is still there, on the ground, and I can't help either of them.

"And then I hear his car again. He's turned back around. He kept his gun in the drawer of his nightstand. When he opened the door, I pulled the trigger, then I pulled it again. I can still see his face, daring me to finish…but I couldn't. They took him away, the police—I guess the neighbors called them when they heard the gunshots— they said he couldn't be saved, but he didn't die. We never saw him again. He sends me a greeting card every year, on my birthday, just to remind me that he's still out there."

The silence that follows could not be broken if he tried. It's heavy and thick and it will not be dispelled. Peter stares ahead and sees nothing. He doesn't even notice that he's left the door halfway open, the cold slipping inside the car, freezing his side.

"Not what you bargained for, is it?" she asks, and the silence slips away like it was never there, replaced by the rush of blood through his head, the far-apart sounds of cars speeding by on the street beyond the alley they've parked in, the rhythm of her breathing beside him. He looks at her and she smiles and it's ugly, self-deprecating and daring all at once, daring him to speak, daring him to pity her.

It's self defense. A knee-jerk reaction to his looking behind the door she's cracked, casting a light on the horrors she keeps trapped inside, the horrors she lives with, day and night. Peter knows this. He doesn't mind. If it takes even a fraction of the hurt away, he won't care if she does it again.

In answer, he brushes away the strands of hair that have fallen over her eyes, cups her cheek. "I didn't bargain," he tells her, low enough that the sound is lost between their breathing and the howl of the wind through the door. Olivia tenses, then relaxes under his palm. She grabs his wrist, and he wonders if she does it to anchor herself or to keep him from moving closer to her.

It makes sense now, the way she spoke in that field, the tightly reined anger and her knowing expression; the way she blamed him for wrongs he didn't commit. Finally, he understands—not everything, and not all at once, but it's a start, a crack he can slip through. Part of him wishes she'd kept him in the dark. It would be easier that way.

Words fail him, so he touches instead. When he runs his thumb over the sharp edge of her cheekbone, she closes her eyes and loosens the hold of her hand around his.

Olivia slips out of his grasp like water, straightens in her seat. "You should go," she says, and it's like nothing ever happened. "Walter's gonna start calling the morgue if you don't show up before he's finished dinner."

Peter barks a laugh, scratches at his beard with fingernails he needs to trim. He breathes in relief, and his breath turns to fog in the cold. "Do you have any idea how much I wish that was a joke?"

Without another word, he gets out of the car and closes the door. She doesn't say anything more, doesn't call him back, and he doesn't feel the need to add more words to the train-crash mess of today. Olivia drives away and he watches, but he doesn't climb the stairs when she's gone.

Walter's piece-of-shit Oldsmobile is parked around the corner, the keys in his coat pocket. He has errands to run.

Peter has always worked better without attachments, he's made it a point to be transient, inconsequential to his surroundings. It's clear now: he's stayed in Lakeside too long.

* * *

Ella takes her time falling asleep. Eventually, her eyelids close of their own accord and her breathing evens, but Olivia lingers on top of the covers, bracketing the small curve of her body with the shape of her own. She runs her hand through Ella's smooth hair, the color of almonds and honey, slowly roasted, over and over.

Coloring is the only thing about Ella that is not prominently Rachel's (not prominently Marilyn's), and it fits her, being different. It gives her a fierceness that contrasts with the angelic disposition of her features, brings out the echoes of mischief that dance around her eyes sometimes, behind the raw intelligence and all the wisdom that comes from being seven.

Light spills through the open doorway, plays with the shadows over her niece's features, and the girl burrows into her pillows, nose scrunched up. Olivia smiles at the sight, just a twist of her lips, gone in the blink of an eye. She rises from the bed slowly so as not to wake her, presses a soft kiss to her temple. This is the closest she will ever come to being a mother, the closest she'll get to loving someone who is a part of her, someone innocent; loving them fully, completely, without holding back. She's made her peace with that.

The faucet shuts off in the kitchen and Rachel comes out to meet her in the living room. She sets two wineglasses down on the coffee table, and a bottle of cabernet to the side. "Thank you for doing that," she says, "bed time's been difficult lately."

"Please. You know I love to." Olivia sits on the wide leather chair facing away from the balcony, pours herself some wine and sips.

"She's so good with you, I'm almost jealous."

Olivia laughs. "It's the difference. She knows you're always going to be here to tuck her in. I come and go. "

"I suppose," Rachel sighs. "Speaking of, has John called?"

"Not yet," she shakes her head. "He'll call though, he always does." It hurts, but she wishes he wouldn't. The last time she heard his voice, every lie left a wound.

"How long has he been away this time?"

"Almost eight months."

"Christ. I don't know how you do it, Liv," Rachel says. "I mean, if I didn't have a little person to care for…I think I'd go crazy, being so alone."

"I don't mind, you know?" She realizes the truth of it as she speaks. "I miss him, I miss him all the time, but there's more to my life than that." She means every word. Even now.

What that says about her, she doesn't know.

Olivia envies her sister. She envies the way Rachel moves through life with a smile, how she charms the world around her. Envies the ease of her posture, her genuine warmth. Rachel is funny, and nurturing, and easy to be with (Olivia pales in comparison). She has made mistakes and she has dealt with her tragedies: a failed marriage and a custody battle still unresolved, a daughter to raise on her own, but she doesn't dwell on the past.

Sometimes memory fails her, and Olivia envies that most of all.

* * *

He should have picked a town further south.

Preferably, some place where he wouldn't need to be scraping the frost off the car's windshield in the middle of fucking October, or dress in so many layers he could compete with an onion before there's snow on the ground. Just a state's difference would have sufficed, there are plenty of small, out-of-the-way towns in southern Illinois that could have gotten the job done. But no. No, he had to come all the way up to north Wisconsin to freeze his balls into retreating to some place in the vicinity of his esophagus, all because the ghost of his conscience would not let him leave Walter behind to get killed like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

In the realm of bad decisions that last one will forever be king.

Peter can hear the ruckus before he even walks through the door, the infernal clatter of pots and pans and cabinet doors banging shut, the angry muttering and the unsteady shuffle of slippered feet on the floor, everything too familiar for his own comfort.

"Walter!" he says, loud enough that his voice carries over all the noise. His father startles and steps into view, hunched over and wrinkled and greyed, through the kitchen door. Old, and mad. Definitely mad. Peter's pretty sure there's nothing under that toffee brown robe, and he prays to all the gods he doesn't believe in that the knot around the man's waist is tighter than the national budget of the average third world country. He's seen enough of Walter in nine months to last him for another eighteen years or so, if not a couple of lifetimes.

"Oh, hello, son. Did I wake you?"

"I just got here. What the hell are you doing?"

"I—I was looking for the Devil Dogs." Walter has the grace to look mildly chastened.

"Devil Dogs," Peter repeats, incredulous, pursing his lips.

"I had a craving."

"Sure, you did. Do those happen to be the same Devil Dogs you made me look for last Tuesday at three in the morning, by any chance? Because you ate those, Walter, the entire box."

"Did I?" his father asks, and he sounds truly curious, turns back into the kitchen to search the cabinets once more. "I was sure I'd left some for later…"

Peter hangs his coat on the rack by the door and steps out of his boots. He stretches, retrieves a bottle of beer from the fridge. "You know what, Walter? Maybe the aliens took them."

"Wouldn't that be wonderful!" Walter says, still searching.

"Yeah. Wonderful. Right." The bottle opener was tragically repurposed in another one of Walter's three-in-the-morning debacles back in August, and since Peter is never going near it again, he makes use of the granite edge of the kitchen counter instead. The cap comes off with a soft hiss and a pop.

"Do you think Deputy Dunham could've eaten them? It wouldn't be surprising, with all the intercourse you've been having."

Peter doesn't spit his beer. That's the kind of thing that only happens to other people, people who haven't spent the past ten years of their lives wringing large sums of money out of other people's unsuspecting pockets via methods of questionable legality; people who haven't stolen from the Irish mob with a smile on and still have breath in their lungs, who haven't worn more faces and more names than they have fingers and toes; people who can't lie their way into Local Law Enforcement with forged papers and a few words, and a criminal record as wild and varied as his own. No, he doesn't spit his beer, he's better than that. He sneezes it. "What did you just say?"

"Oh, hunger is a perfectly normal response to intense physical activity, son, there's no need to look so shocked. I don't think I have ever eaten as much as when I first started dating your mother."

Self-preservation doesn't let him hear that last part, but he's pretty sure he has enough information. It's curious. At no point in time does it occur to Peter to deny it; at no point do the words, _Walter, I am not sleeping with Olivia_ come out of his mouth. Like any good poker player, Peter knows when to bluff, when to fold, and when he's fucked.

He's fucked. And Olivia is going to kill him.

Shit. Olivia.

Two can keep a secret, maybe. Three? Not so much. A town like this one, if this little gem gets out of the confines of these four walls, out of Walter's mouth, every soul is going to know how they fucked, when and what they had for lunch afterwards faster than Peter can say 'divorce.' And she doesn't deserve that. Doesn't deserve to be anyone's gossip, to have her life put out on display for public perusal because one crazy old man couldn't keep his mouth shut tight.

The thought makes him angry, and anger has long been the fuel to his fire. "You say so much as a word about this to anyone, Walter, and I promise you, I will leave you here when I skip town."

Walter actually turns to him at that, quivering left hand clasped in his right. "We're leaving?"

"What, you thought we were staying?"

"Well, we—we've stayed here longer than anywhere else yet, and I—I thought…It's a very nice town." He deflates like a squeaky toy that's been chewed through by a particularly voracious dog, but at the moment Peter feels no sympathy for him, and no remorse.

"Yes, and when the people chasing after me find us it's going to make a very nice grave. Of course we're leaving." Peter pushes off the counter, leaves the kitchen behind to put distance between them. Murder is not a crime he wants to add to the list. It wouldn't do, to have come all this way and still end up with his father's blood on his hands.

Walter trails after him. "But...what about the diner? What about Olivia?"

"What about her, Walter?" He really doesn't want to think about this, doesn't want to say it out loud. "She already had a life in this town before we got here, and she's still going to have one after we leave. Just get what you need and go back to sleep, please."

For once, Walter listens to him. Before he climbs the stairs, he turns back around and says, "Son? When are we leaving?"

Peter sighs and drops down on the couch, his head in his hands. "I don't know, Walter. Soon. I'll let you know."

"Good night, son."

"Night, Walter."

The shuffle of slippers and the creak of the stairs offset the silence.

* * *

There's a longish box waiting by her door when she gets home. It's wrapped in newspaper, damp from being on the ground and unmarked, but the wrapping is precise. Macabre possibilities run through her mind.

Olivia has always been good at picturing all the ways situations can go from wrong to apocalyptically messed up in the span of a sigh. Imagining the many things that could be in that box, considering the date, is not hard at all.

It's about the size of her forearm and heavy when she picks it up, heavier than she expected. She debates for a moment whether it's wise to bring it inside, but decides that whatever it is, she's going to face it. There are hurts and then there are hurts, but no matter the type she's always been the kind of person that rips the band-aid off.

So focused is she on the package that she almost misses the white, square envelope on the floor when she opens the door. Almost.

_Thinking of You_, says the card, like all the others before it (twenty or so), and it's a threat disguised as sentiment, danger thinly veiled with longing. It's malicious, and so very clever. If someone else were to get the card, someone not her, nothing in it would raise suspicion.

The envelope wasn't dropped in the mailbox, it was pushed under her door.

He has never been so close before.

Olivia drops the card on the coffee table, the words facing the emptiness between them and the ceiling. The package, still unopened, she sets beside it, her movements efficient and mechanical. Before she's aware of the direction her feet have taken, she finds herself inside her bedroom, hands around the gun she placed on the nightstand before she left for dinner.

The weight of the Glock™ is comforting, the metal cool against her palm, the grip familiar and smooth. She's taken care of it with dedication. If she learned anything from her stepfather, it was that devotion to your weapon pays off. It's a lesson she carries everywhere with her. So far, the gun has returned the favor tenfold.

She keeps it with her when she turns back to the living room, but she leaves the safety on. He's not here. And in any case, after twenty years her aim has improved considerably; if he were, he'd already be dead.

The apartment is dark—she forgot to turn the lights on after she came through the door, but the night is clear enough that she can see just fine with only the light spilling in from the windows, leaving tiger-stripes on the walls as it passes through the open blinds. With the headache she can feel building between her temples, the darkness is welcome to stick around for a while.

She sits down on the couch, puts the gun over the card, stares at the package for a long time. At some point the call she was expecting comes, but she doesn't bother to stand and pick up the phone. She refuses to keep acting like everything is fine. She wants to not feel anything for one night, but maybe that's too much to ask. The answering machine kicks in after a few dozen rings, and sure enough, it's her husband's voice pouring into the room through the speakers.

John says, "Hey, Liv. Sorry I'm calling so late, the time difference did a number on me. Things are looking up over here, I might be coming home sooner than we thought, maybe even next month. I miss you, you know? Germany's cold without you in it. Colder than Lakeside, imagine that. Anyway, I know it's not your favorite day, but I didn't want to let it go by without calling. Liv? I love you." The recording ends with that.

_Yeah,_ Olivia thinks. _ I love you, too. That's the problem._

Tired of second-guessing herself, tired of today and wanting desperately for it to end, she grabs the package and rips the newspaper covering off, reveals the black polished box underneath. Silver lettering and slanted lines are the only adornment on the surface besides the golden sketch of a victorian man, striding forward on the bottom half.

There's a post-it on the box, the handwriting looping and neat and familiar:

_So. About that drink (or three)…_

_—P._

* * *

His cellphone wakes him, buzzing on the nightstand, reverberating on the hollow drawers below the wooden surface on top. Groaning, barely conscious, he considers throwing it against the nearest wall, seeing what comes out of that.

Instead, he answers, eyes still shut and voice muffled by the pillow, rough. "What?"

"Did I wake you?" Olivia's voice. Olivia, calling him at—he checks the clock to the side, bleary eyed—one in the morning. That alone wakes him up, fast.

Peter sits up on the bed, the metal frame creaking underneath (and no wonder Walter knew about them, really), sheets and quilt sliding down to pool around his hips, fist against his eyes. "Yeah, more or less. What's the matter?" _Please don't be work._

"Nothing. It's nothing. I'm sorry I woke you up." She sounds like she might hang up, but she doesn't. There's a hesitance in her that is unsettling because he's never heard it from her. She seems so sure about everything.

"Hey, it's fine," he says, wanting badly to keep her on the line, but the yawn that punctuates the statement probably doesn't help him sell it. Peter listens to her breathing as she remains silent over the receiver, and finds it more uneven than he'd like. Exhaling, he takes a risk, asks, "Did you get a card?"

She doesn't answer immediately, but when she does her voice is quiet, soft. "No," she tells him, and he can picture her shaking her head with the phone against her ear, though he's not there and cannot see it.

"Happy birthday, Olivia." He hopes she knows the sentiment is real.

A pause follows where her breathing evens, and he notices that the change is too regular and too abrupt to be a natural development. "I wanted to thank you," Olivia says. "For the whiskey."

_So she got it, then. Good._

"Anytime, Olivia. Anytime." He means it more than he thought he could, more than he should. Peter King may be a different man, but sentimentality of the kind is not something that Peter Bishop can afford. It slows him down. It brought him here. One day it'll get him killed, if he keeps going like this.

(A pity then, that he's always been bad at listening to his own advice).

* * *

Olivia wakes up on the couch with a scream caught in her throat, a shiver down her spine and cold sweat on her brow, a bottle of eighteen-year-old scotch sitting open on the table, the third glass still half full.

A spread of pictures and diagrams covers the rest of the table, surrounding the alcohol and the weapon the way the sea surrounds its islands. The pictures capture her figure, both up close and at a distance; the diagrams describe the creature she hunts, the three nails, the silver blood.

Echoes of the nightmare swim behind her eyelids, press outwards, expanding. They want to drown her. Drown her like the thing that wasn't Peter (but looked like him, felt like him, stood by her, like him) did, in the dream, his hands around her neck, pushing down on her chest, keeping her under as the lake filled her lungs.

She sits up, takes deep breaths to steady herself, slow down her heartbeat. Her head, in her palms, pounds, the earlier headache now become a full-blown migraine.

In the bathroom to her side, door half-way open and light spilling over the hallway floorboards in long lines, a rectangular ceramic tile lies above floor level, unaligned, pushed up and to the side. Beside it, an empty watertight bag points to the space the tile left behind, reveals an equally rectangular, foot deep cement box built into the ground.

The lightbulbs flicker on, and off, and on.


End file.
